A Shadow’s Land

[ashadowsland]

This is About What You Want it To Be

Every new arrival is more time known

And it takes me by surprise

Just how much I spill my guts

My change spread across 73rd

You have an eye that laughs, I noticed

And a laugh that’s rare

A voice that sits deep in my past, she’s

Turning me red, the living room chair

It’s a star born for our meeting again

It’s a “don’t lose it now: the love of a friend”

It’s a trip to the moon. you hung it, you did.

It was just what you are, not what you could’ve been

I came to you like an adventure unraveled

Armstrong in the light of the moon

Every word I thought I knew

Was lost in the pale blue sight of you

A star’s enough when you know its shine

When it calls you from an inner place

It’s a spiritual knowing, a happening of sorts

It’s the perfect eye for a perfect storm

[ashadowsland]

The Night Shift

The summer’s always young

My memory goes wayyy back

It was there before me, since the beginning

Fable is the first to know: it’s real if it dreams

My eyes rest upon my first bike

Green and rusted, the banana seat

With training wheels too

It peeled of paint, it was chipping blue

In the evening heat

There’s a sunset I remember

The light on the wall, the orange hue

It smells of spring, the breeze that glides in

It takes me to my younger self

Every time I breathe, it’s

Bonfires through the neighborhood

Going to bed before it’s dark

Hearing the humming cicadas

I’ve never slept the same

There was life full, life begun

With God to lay me down

As my mother would sing

My eyes would disbelieve

The gladness of her smile

The moon commutes through its nightly route

As the sun would take its final bow

Goodnight, my love is here tomorrow

My father took his evening stroll

And as the stars clocked in

I’d stay up late to watch them from my crib

And it was then I knew

In my youngest mind

This only happens once

An awareness of you

[ashadowsland]

On and On and On and On and On

I felt tall

When our shadows overlapped

On a summer’s yellow eve

When we were sixteen

That song was always there

Like it was inside me

Just like you were here

Meeting by my parent’s tree

I loved you then

I saw you in everything; again, again

On the screen, book covers, a strangers face

It’s okay to miss you every now and then

You’d follow me to Manhattan island

We were trying, we were trying

We stayed up all night working things out

And tomorrow will drag on and on

[ashadowsland]

Clouds

Do you think before TV

People found the clouds entertaining?

Scaling houses, Tattooine

[ashadowsland]

Christmas

Racing in empty mall strip parking lots

On Christmas Day

Was a game we used to play

When we rushed to love

And then felt rushes of pain

Little broken glass pieces of

Each other

Our bodies

Our mothers

Holy Father

We miss the old Yahweh

When you cut much deeper

When you tested us

It felt like true love

And yet there was

Pain as new as Jesus screaming out

As Mary screamed too

Banished to a stranger’s manger

And it held her in its arms

As it said,

“Soon it will cease.

But don’t you love it?

Don’t you feel alive?”

And as Angels looked on

They pleaded with God

When those present observed

Love is both eager and dreadful

In secret, they told of their woes

Signed in a gold encrusted white envelope

It journied through the thunder of

God and His skies

To be found by a boy

Amongst a pile of bread in the market place

And when he opened the letter of limitless worth

The Angels realized he was lost for words

And such is a story so old, it reaches back to God

We became our Fathers

We are here, we are gone

But in a moment before your death

There is a voice that is heard

It sounds neither preachy, absurd

“It is here, you know

Both above and below

Covenants both old and new”

It was in my heart

It was in the car

It was in the homes

It was in the wintertime

Of all I’ve known

And as the car flipped it’s head

I somehow knew

What was screaming out

Silent night, Holy night

Your brother’s in Heaven

His spirit’s in flight

It was as if its song was

Turning down every street

Even Anita Avenue

My only regret

They are streaks of light

They are baby tadpoles

Swimming across the glass

They are a dream I had

A word I can’t pronounce

[ashadowsland]

Standing Ovation

I hear tires rolling on the wet pavement

Like crowds clapping for their hero

It’s a standing ovation

[ashadowsland]

Closet of the Graveyard

There’s a closet in the graveyard

And they all love it there

[ashadowsland]

Dad

No one can ever say of my dad

that he didn’t believe in something

[ashadowsland]

Spirit

The spirit of God

Is the only thing that lasts

[ashadowsland]

Twenties

All throughout our twenties

We’re like “this”

We’re like “that”

“Oh my God, that’s me.”

[ashadowsland]

Nighttime

Do you think the end of the world

will come at nighttime?

[ashadowsland]

Soliloquies

I wanted a place together on 23rd

You wanted a place on third base

The high rise view was dreamed up

In the basement

How much the god in me

Would will you into soliloquies

[ashadowsland]

Sirens

I heard a siren a ways away

On the way to my car

I thought nothing of it

Until it was for me

And when mine came

I saw stars outshine the street lamps

And all my rocks turned to sand

And when I arrived to you

I saw you holding her

And that made sense

[ashadowsland]

Closet

Every false accusation

Every failed liberation

They all find their way

To the closet that doesn’t open

[ashadowsland]

F

Failing class sounds pretty cool

When your music sounds better than your grades

[ashadowsland]

Taken up

I’m taken up again

I’m taken up by you

I’m taken out for words

Conversion of the two

[ashadowsland]

Twenty

I got a little sad when I watched it again

It’s not like when I was twenty